Truth in Advertising

SingleMomSeeking had an interesting post up last week about the online dating conundrum of the single mom--how much do you say about your kid in your profile?

My approach has been: nothing.

Zip.

Because when I put up a profile, I am not in fact looking for a stepdad for Frances, even if that is what she's asking me for. And I'm not shopping for a husband who will take the two of us as a package deal and swear their eternal love and allegiance to the both of us. All I'm looking for is someone I think I have enough in common with to spend a pleasant hour chatting over a cup of tea. If we get to that pleasant hour chatting over a cup of tea, and we'd like to have another pleasant hour chatting or doing something else, then it might be time to make a few disclosures.

It's sort of like being diabetic, and I remember on a community on tudiabetes a while back someone asked in a tone of great anxiety, when should I tell a date that I'm diabetic?

My advice would be: whenever it happens to come up during conversation. If you treat it like a big deal, your date is going to treat it like a big deal; if you are full of anxiety about this horrible secret you have to share, then your date will think of it as a horrible secret, and reconsider seeing you because OHMYGOD you might actually be looking for a nursemaid or someone with better health insurance! When in reality, you are just looking for someone to chat with for an hour over a cup of tea, so calm down. If you are out and about in public with someone the shots or the tester will come out and I guarantee that if you treat it casually, as just one thing about you, so will your date. "Oh, this? Yeah, I have to test my blood sugar. Mmm hmm, diabetic; fifteen years. Well, the needles aren't so bad since I started on the pump"--and you can see how it goes. I'm not saying that there's no anxiety in this approach, but I've never, ever had anyone say, "Holy shit you're diabetic! This changes everything! I can't date a diabetic! Jesus christ, you ought to include that in your profile." I've never had anyone complain about it in offline dating, either; and at this point in my life I've been on dates with at least 20 people so I think we are approaching statistical significance of a sort.

Everyone on planet Earth has shit in their past somewhere. Being diabetic is difficult and hard but it is not the most important thing about you and someone asking you out for a first date has absolutely no inalienable right to know your health history. My attitude is much the same about Frances.

Someone who is going to be spending an hour chatting with me over tea does not need the intimate details of my personal life. Frances won't be coming for tea, so whether or not they will get along is immaterial at that stage (it doesn't stay that way, but there's a lot you can't tell over a computer). A first date has absolutely no inalienable right to know about your family history. They don't need to know that you've never been married or that your parents split up when you were five or that you have six younger siblings all with the name of George, even the girls. All they need to know at that point is, do I know enough about this person to believe that we would have fun chatting over tea for an hour?

That's it. There's really no need to make it any more complicated. Tea: yes or no?

While you are having a pleasant hour chatting over tea, your kids will probably come up. Talk about them. Be positive. Don't be filled with anxiety or at least don't look like it. "Yes, I have a daughter. She's four, her name is Frances, and she's perfect." That's gotten me through eight first dates in the last several months with people who did not know I was a single mom in advance and it has never been a problem. At that point they still just want to get to know you. They are asking themselves: did I enjoy this hour chatting over tea enough to see this person again for a movie or dinner? They are not asking themselves: holy crap, I don't know if I can be a step-parent; if I ask him/her to see that new movie with me next weekend we could be living together before you know it and I am too young and my life would be over! Not unless you make it seem like they should be considering their ultimate role in your life vision of a reconstituted nuclear family. You can relax. It's ok. It's just a date.

Of course you can include this information in your profile. Why not? Go ahead and put in the diabetes and the kids. But frankly I think this is a bad idea; to me it is a lot like a prenatal diagnosis.

OK it's a bad analogy but it's all I've got right now, stick with me.

When someone tells you that your unborn baby has some syndrome or condition, it becomes all-consuming, because it's the only thing you know about them. You don't know their sex or their eye colour or their temperament or intelligence or anything but this syndrome, so this syndrome grows in your head to become your baby. Trust me, I know from experience.

When you find out after the baby is born, it's still hard and sad, but you already know a lot more about your kid. You know how they smile and how they laugh and whether they prefer Elmo or Dora and how they like to be put to sleep. It's not the only thing you know about them anymore. You've met them. Your baby is no longer defined by the syndrome, it's just one thing about them, and no longer the most important thing.

Kids aren't a genetic syndrome of course, but I hope you see the point I'm making: when it comes to online dating it's a lot easier to say no than it is to say yes. You've got ten messages and you can't speak to all of them let alone date them, so you have to find a way to screen out the ones you're not interested in. It's easy enough to say that you only want to date someone who isn't turned off by single parents, but they don't know you yet, and chances are that the "diagnosis" will become you in their minds, and they won't be thinking about YOU as you are, they'll be thinking about the single moms they hear about in the news--the ones raising screwed up kids who become delinquents who get knocked up early, become poor, perpetuate cycles of low achievement, can't stay married, whatever.

If someone meets you and isn't interested in the total package, including the fact that you have other important people in your life who wake you up a few times a night and depend on you for food and shelter, then it wasn't meant to be. Fine, move on, it was only tea. But the same goes for whatever reason a first date doesn't lead to happily-ever-after, and most of them don't. They might have a problem with your book collection, your voting history, your parents, your medicine cabinet, what have you.

I mean, what about you isn't part of the total take-it-or-leave-it package? What would you be willing to give up or change for a date? That list is pretty small for me. I don't put those in my profile either.

It's not a full-disclosure document, it's an advertisement. It's not a marriage contract negotiation, it's tea. After that, maybe it's a movie. At some point it might become a marriage contract negotiation but they will have had plenty of chances to consider your parental status before that happens. As well as your book collection, your voting history, and the state of your toilets.

I frankly consider it more important to emphasize that I am bookish and strange, as that has much more of an impact on whether or not we will enjoy chatting over that cup of tea, and will affect whatever might come after too. Bookish and strange, take it or leave it! Yeah and don't talk to me about changing the diabetes either--really don't, because I can't change that even if I wanted to. And I do.

I won't change my politics either--or the wicca, the feminism, my writing, my friendships--maybe I should put that in the profile too? No? Why not? Is it because those things are not generally considered valid reasons to reject someone--and single parenthood is? Are you, in effect, saying "this is something I know is undesirable to a lot of people so I'm giving you a chance to reject me on this basis before you've even met me"? Are we agreeing with a culture that says single parents are unattractive?

If this relationship alone--and not our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, crazy cousins and friends who, let's face it, are also unalterable parts of our lives--is the sole one we believe that people have a right to know before they've even met us, then I think we are.

It might be a lot more fun and a lot less stressful for everyone involved if all the forecasting of pressures and expectations and disappointments along the road between the cup of tea and the honeymoon could be postponed until after you've figured out whether or not you would even enjoy spending time together. What would change if, instead of saying, "I am looking for a relationship and therefore I am on this site looking for the perfect person to spend all my time with" (and getting all invested in a relationship that at that point exists solely in your head) "which means they had better be prepared to accept me exactly as I am before they even know who I am, which means they have to know that I have kids so they can ask themselves if they're ready to be a step-parent," you said "I am hoping for a relationship and therefore I am on this website to have some fun with some interesting-seeming people, and maybe one of them will turn into something great." Keep an open mind, keep the expectations down, have fun and see what happens.

It's just a cup of tea. Right?

Posted by Andrea at April 28, 2008 11:38 AM under Single Momming

EMAIL this entry

(comments fields are below this section)